


Second Choice

by angel_deux



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7090321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deacon knows he's her second choice. Which is fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Choice

**Author's Note:**

> This is, I guess, my attempt to wrap my head around how I feel about this relationship. And to try and figure out what kind of past connection Deacon could have to Cole and Cassie, as has been hinted by the actors (hoping beyond hope that the connection is not a familial one or this story will be deleted lightning quick, guys).

Funny thing is, if you asked Cole or Ramse how they figure Deacon and Cassie wound up where they wound up, they’d probably have some ideas that were pretty much exactly fucking contrary to the actuality.

Which is to say that Deacon pushes her away the first time she kisses him, and he asks if she’s out of her goddamn mind, and she calls him a bitch.

Literally, actually, that’s what comes out of her mouth.

Which makes him laugh so hard he forgets to be mad about being her obvious second choice, and he kisses her back when she inevitably tries again, because Cassie isn’t a ‘try once and give up’ kind of girl, and neither is Deacon, for that matter.

* * *

“You ruined her,” Cole says once, quiet and growly in the hallway. “You took someone bright and good and you turned her into just another asshole like us.”

“She’s still breathing, isn’t she?” Deacon asks. “You’re welcome.”

Cole hits him then. Which he should have seen coming. Cole’s on him all the damn time about how he turned Cassie hard, but Deacon thinks more people need to be on Cassie for softening him up the way she did.

Not that she had to try too much at that.

* * *

“You saw me, and you knew me,” he tells her once. This is before Cole and Ramse come back to fuck everything up. She’s half asleep next to him and she squints up at him through sleep-heavy eyes, and this fact has been weighing on his chest and he needs to say it. Needs to get it out.

“When?”

“I shouldn’t…uh. It clearly hasn’t happened yet, right? For you?”

“Oh. Oh, God. When you were…?”

“2018,” he confirms.

“Holy shit.”

“All this time, I thought that was a weird first conversation to have with somebody. You started…” he stops himself, can’t quite finish. “I don’t know. It was just weird. Funny, huh? Soon as I saw you here, I figured out why it was so fucked up; you _did_ know me.”

_You started crying_ , is what he doesn’t finish.

Funny thing is, as soon as she kissed him, as soon as she gave half a shit about him, he figured out why. Because Deacon knows what it feels like to see someone you didn’t think you were ever going to see again. He knows it means she’s going to watch him die.

* * *

Deacon has always been a survivor. Ever since he was a boy. And in 2018, Cassie looked at his name tag and looked at his face, and there were tears in her eyes, and he should have known right then to run the fuck away and never look back.

He didn’t run. He was standing there just thinking _holy shit. Cassandra Railly. Doctor Cassandra Railly from the news. Holy shit._

And she said, “Theodore Deacon. Wow. It’s so nice to meet you.”

She was crying, and he said, “Jeez, lady, are you okay?” and then she laughed and reached out, squeezed his shoulder.

“Sorry. You remind me of someone I knew,” she said. “I’m sorry for keeping you. You can rejoin your brother now. And Theodore? Behave.”

* * *

_Behave_.

The second time she says that to him, he nearly shits a brick. Because he knows that in her future, she will be remembering this moment. And in their present, she has no idea.

* * *

_You’re going to watch me die_ , he thinks. _That’s why you were crying. That’s why you looked so surprised to see me. I know you don’t give more than half a shit about me on our best days, but we’re_ something _even if you’re just waiting to get back to Cole. So I'm gonna die, and you’re gonna miss me. And at least I get to have_ that _._

“What?” she asks, glaring at him because he’s just standing there watching her scribble notes down on a torn up piece of paper. She pins it to the board Jones keeps adding incomprehensible shit to.

“Nothing,” he says. He walks out while her back is turned.

* * *

“You’ll miss me when I’m gone,” comes out in a sneer once during a fight. They don’t have many of those. Barely have any at all. Cole seems to think their friendship was more gradual than it was. Like they had to get _past_ shit. But even when Cassie was softer, she knew exactly how to talk to him, and he knew how to talk to her, and they made good partners before they ever made good friends before they ever made good lovers.

“You think so?” she asks, choking back a laugh.

“Oh, I _know_ it, Bright Eyes, he shoots back. And something catches in her expression, and she takes a step back. She’s a smart woman, Cassie. Not surprising she’d put it together.

Again he leaves, walks away before she can say anything. His fists clenching. His heart beating hard. He shouldn’t have said anything.

* * *

Second choice. That’s what he is. So it’s fucking ridiculous that he knows he’d choose her every time. Even knowing that she loves Cole. Will never love him.

Fucking ridiculous.

* * *

“Hi.”

He looks up, grunts a hello. Goes back to pointedly not looking at her as he looks down at his map. Circles a building. Draws an x through another one.

“You going on a run?” she asks.

“Yeah, well. Someone’s gotta keep this place running while you’re off doing…whatever it is you do. _When_ ever it is you do it.”

She smiles at him as she leans against the table. All tight jeans and leather jacket, her blonde hair around her shoulders in waves. He sighs. Looks up at her. Meets her gaze.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Not your fault,” he responds, even though he’s not even a hundred percent sure what she’s apologizing for. He chooses to believe she’s sorry for pushing him even though she always knew she’d choose Cole in the end.

“Look, what you said the other day…”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Maybe not, but you did. And you can’t undo that.”

“You sure ‘bout that? Lotta undoing going around.”

“Ideally, yeah.”

“Yeah. It’d be nice not to die.”

“It’d be nice not to lose you,” she says. She crosses her arms over her chest. Looks towards the door and he knows she’s looking for Cole. Making sure he’s not around before she moves her hands to his hips and pulls herself toward him, standing up on her toes to kiss him. The consolation is that it isn’t all fast and furious the way it usually is with her. It’s actually pretty fucking close to tender.

“I just wanted to say you’re right,” she says as she pulls away. “If- if it happens. Of course I’d miss you.”

“You’d better,” he says. It comes out more serious than he’d like, but Cassie doesn’t push back like he thought she would. Actually kisses him again. Takes his face in both hands. And he thinks, _hell, she actually means it_. But he’s Deacon, which means he’s the one who pushes back. Smiles like it’s nothing, like none of this means anything. “Think Jones would kill us if we christened this table?”

“Definitely,” Cassie says, hopping back to take a seat on it, pulling him in with her knees around his waist. “But like you said. Lotta undoing going around.”

“I like the way you think.”

“I know you do.”

* * *

“It would be great,” he says to Cole, his hand wrapped tight around Cassie’s forearm. “If you could find a way to undo this.”

Before Cassie has a chance to react to that, he shoves her. She staggers forward into Cole’s waiting arms, and he slams the door behind her, grabbing his gun and jamming it through the handles. Cassie recovers quickly like he knew she would, and she slams against the door with all her force. Cole does too, which is nice. A little unexpected, sure, but nice.

“You fucking asshole!” Cassie yells through the glass, and Deacon holds out his hands in an exaggerated shrug, spinning on his heel and walking deeper into the room. He can hear the gunshots getting closer.

“Better get a move on, guys!” he shouts over his shoulder. “Our guests aren’t gonna wait forever.”

Jones and Ramse and Dr. Adler don’t give a fuck about him; they’re already hard at work, he knows. Only Cassie and Cole are still trying to get through. Deacon grabs another gun off one of his dead friends. Whistles as he does it. The thing about Deacon is that he isn’t a sociopath, but it’s so much easier to pretend to be one than it is to actually confront emotions like pain and loss, and he believes firmly in taking shortcuts where you can.

“Deacon!” comes Cassie’s voice over the intercom. He turns over his shoulder to look at her with an expression of mock disappointment. He goes to the intercom on his side, presses the button, maintains eye contact as Cole moves to stand behind Cassie.

“Could I not have a dying moment alone with her?” he asks, grandly annoyed, and Cole makes that wounded otter expression but actually _does_ fuck off. As far as dying wishes go, it’s not bad.

“Get your ass in here,” she says. She’s standing on the other side of the glass, her eyes flashing even through it. She’s angry. She’s _so_ angry. It’s almost funny. “No one has to die.”

“I was always gonna die,” he reminds her.

“No. We can change that. Right now, we can change that.”

“Better get to it. Until then, I’ll be with the Seven where I belong. Holding these assholes off.”

“You can’t win.”

“Yeah. No shit,” he mutters. Starts to step away. Changes his mind. “Hey, you’ll see me soon, right? Try not to cry too much. It’ll freak me out for, like, thirty years.”

“Deacon…”

She’s already crying, and he wanted to just laugh it off and go to war, go take a few bullets for this girl like a total chump, but he has to sigh and turn back to look at her.

“Look, let’s not make this into a _thing_ , okay? We both knew this was temporary the second Cole came back.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t love you too,” she insists. Stubbornly annoyed and embarrassed to even be _saying_ it. That’s his girl.

“Yeah, okay. I’m hanging up now,” he says.

“Deacon!”

“It’s been fun, Dr. Railly.”

“Deacon, just…think, Deacon. Think back to the last time you saw me, okay? And you try to tell me that I don’t…that I don’t love you too.”

* * *

Funny thing is, she’s right.

Maybe that’s not funny. Maybe that’s just inevitable. Seems like she’s right about fucking _everything_.

“There’s a man who will be coming to see me,” she had said. Said to both Deacon and his brother, but she never looked away from Deacon. She coughed into a tissue, her breathing hard and labored, and Deacon wished there was something he could do, but she had refused all treatment.

Everyone was dead and gone except for the three of them, and soon it would just be Deacon and his brother again.

“Is he going to help you?” Deacon asked.

“He can’t help me. You know that. It’s too late.”

Deacon _did_ know that. Once the virus got hold of you…

But still. Dr. Railly was the only person who’d been nice to them, the only person who had tried to help them after their parents were gone. He couldn’t just let her die.

“What should I do?” he asked.

“Just…just tell him where to find me. I’ll be upstairs in the lab. Working. All right?”

“Dr. Railly…”

“I know, Deacon. It’s okay. You’ll be okay. Trust me. I know.”

She hugged him, then. Hugged him tight. It was weird.

“I’m sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t a hundred percent sure what he was apologizing for.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. We’ll just have to…try again, I guess.”

He didn’t know what that meant either. His brother made a twirling finger motion next to his head, and Deacon had to agree: the virus was making her lose it.

“Sure, lady,” he said, and Cassie laughed, and it made her cough into her tissue again.

“You were right,” she said. “I have missed you, Deacon.”

And she looked at him for so long a moment that he had to look away, uncomfortable. And by the time he worked up the courage to look back, she was walking away, her steps labored, her breathing labored. He knew he wouldn’t ever see her again.

* * *

“Maybe you’re not full of shit,” he says. Cassie smiles through the glass at him. Tears falling in earnest now. It’s nice. Never thought he’d ever see her cry over him the way she cried over Cole. He’s pretty sure it makes him a selfish bastard to be glad for it, but he’s also pretty sure he already _knew_ he was a selfish bastard, so.

“We’ll fix this,” she says, and he thinks of her saying _I’ll just have to try again_.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Do that, would you?” The gunshots are getting louder, and Jones is yelling for Cassie: it’s time. They’re going to the machine. They’re going to try. Ramse’s already getting in.

“I’ll see you again,” she says.

“Yeah.” That’s true, no matter what happens next. “Yeah, you will. Stop me from doing this stupid shit next time, okay? Dying like this? It’s gonna suck.”

The gunshots are really close now, and he has to let go of the intercom. He lets himself look at Cassie for another long moment. Takes her in. Then he turns to face the door, gun ready.

He already watched her die. Snuck upstairs and watched her die in Cole’s arms as Cole cried, held her.

_It’s only fair, Cassie_ , he thinks to himself. _I watched you die. Now it’s your turn._

* * *

He’s always been second choice. But it took him until now to realize he wouldn’t have traded a single second.


End file.
